Alternate Scheduling Method – Survey

This survey is intended for anyone who will be involved in team scheduling next season, whether it’s the association scheduler, team manager, Snowbelt rep, etc. Please feel free to forward this page on to anyone who is involved with Snowbelt scheduling at any level.

Introduction

Take a mental journey back to Monday, October 23, 2017. Remember the hot, crowded room? Remember the noise? Remember the Monday night drive home, knowing you had to be at work on Tuesday morning?

In my opinion, the Schedulers Meeting as we do it today has both pros and cons. Off the top of my head:Pros:

Within 24 hours of the league schedule being released, you have a large majority (if not all) of your games scheduled. (When we tried doing this only over e-mail with no meeting, it took 2 weeks for some associations to complete their schedule.)

Since everyone is in the same room, all the schedulers are easily accessible — No waiting for e-mail replies.

You get to learn some of the faces behind these names that you’ve been emailing for years.

It gets you out of the house and away from the kids for a few hours.

Cons:

It’s a long drive on a weeknight for some attendees. (Remember to thank your Snowbelt Rep, who makes that drive every month from August through March!)

With all the papers flying around, errors are somewhat frequent (including double-booking).

It’s not a friendly atmosphere for those with claustrophobia-related issues. (I talk to them just outside of the meeting room every year.)

An Alternate Method

For 4 years, I have been keeping tabs on a particular scheduling website (youthhockey.com) that should handle what we need, and at no cost. I have been reticent about switching over to it because it requires some coordination and cooperation from all the associations to get things set up each season. I think at this stage, we might be ready.
Here is the barebones structure of how this would work, according to how I understand the system:

Once teams are officially declared, they are entered into the youthhockey.com system.

I sort them into their proper age groups and divisions.

Matchups are created so every team has 8 “away” opponents and 8 “home” opponents.

Schedulers will enter in all their home ice dates/times/rinks into the system for their team.

Schedulers will mark which dates their team(s) can travel.

Once a team has input their schedule, you can select them from the list and you’ll be shown all the available ice slots remaining for that team to choose from.

Confirm the time you prefer and then I believe the other team needs to confirm it on their end as well. Once both teams confirm, it’s set in the schedule and that ice slot does not show as available.

And that’s pretty much it from what you’d see within the system. One thing to note: I would be assisting everyone so if you aren’t computer savvy, I can help out. Also, I’m sure that Mark at youthhockey.com would be accommodating.

So with that brief description out of the way, here’s a video of theirs that highlights some features. We would not be using all of these features.

Consider this alternate method for completing the schedule, then fill out the survey below. Thanks.

Survey

Do you think we should try this new system out?YesNoOther (explain in Comments)

If Yes, how do you think we should transition to the new system?No Schedulers Meeting next season, just switch over to the new system.Allow schedulers to use the new system for a week and then have a Schedulers Meeting for everyone who had issues and still needs to attend.Allow schedulers to use the new system but still have the Schedulers Meeting the day after schedules are released.Other (explain in Comments)

Any additional thoughts or comments? Write them here. Feel free to speak your mind. What are your concerns? Preferences?

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